Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e7

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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Application of ultraltration for olive processing wastewaters

treatment
Abdelilah El-Abbassi, Hajar Kiai, Jihane Raiti, Abdellatif Hadi*
Food Sciences Laboratory, Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences e Semlalia, BP 2390, 40000 Marrakech, Morocco

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Reducing environmental impacts and getting economic benets, based on by-product recovery, was the
Received 24 July 2012 aim of applying the ultraltration (UF) process for the treatment of olive processing wastewaters, namely
Received in revised form olive mill wastewater (OMW) and table olive wastewaters, the main pollutants of olive oil and table olive
10 August 2013
production industries. Magnetically stirred unit and polyethersulfone membrane of a molecular weight
Accepted 11 August 2013
cut-off of 50,000 Da were used. The effectiveness of the different operating conditions was evaluated using
Available online xxx
rejection coefcients of: chemical oxygen demand, color, total solids and total phenolic content (TPC). The
effects of pH on the permeate uxes and OMW depollution were evaluated. A substantial reduction of the
Keywords:
Ultraltration
aforementioned parameters was obtained excluding the TPC which was intentionally kept as high as
Olive mill wastewater possible. The obtained results show that the UF can be used as an efcient pretreatment for olive processing
Table olive wastewater wastewaters at acidic pH. Such a pretreatment may enhance efciently a subsequent extraction process of
Pretreatment phenolic compounds from permeate and improve the effectiveness of any further secondary treatment.
Phenolic compounds Therefore, a sustainable and cleaner production of olive oil and table olives can be achieved.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction These two olive processing industries generate huge volumes of

Cleaner production is a preventive, company-specic environ-
mental protection initiative applied in all industrial sectors (Klemes
et al., 2012). However, the challenge of many industrial sectors is
how to reuse and recover valuable stuffs and water from wastes and
wastewaters (Catarino et al., 2007; Klemes and Huisingh, 2008). In
the Mediterranean countries, the most important agro-industrial
wastewaters are generated by olive processing industry. The main
industrial uses of olive fruits are oil extraction and the preparation
of table olives. The extraction of olive oil generates an aqueous
phase formed by the water content of the fruit combined with
water used to wash and process the olives. The combination is
called olive mill wastewaters (OMW).
The worldwide production of table olives was estimated to about
2.5 million ton (IOC, 2013). The preparation of these olives consists
of treating the fruits with dilute NaOH solution (lye) to eliminate
partially bitterness and increase skin permeability, followed by two
or three water washings to remove the excess of alkali from
the previous treatment. Finally, washed fruits undergo a lactic
fermentative process in brine (Tuna and Akpiar-bayiziti, 2009).
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 212 661 412030; fax: 212 524 437412.
E-mail addresses: a.hadi@ucam.ac.ma, hadi.abdellatif@gmail.com (A. Hadi).
wastewaters during different manufacturing stages. These waste-
waters are often discharged directly into surface waters or stored in
evaporation ponds which may contaminate groundwater and cause
other environmental problems. Numerous researches have tried to
develop efcient technologies for olive processing wastewaters
treatment. These technologies are mainly based on biological
degradation (anaerobic and aerobic) (Beltran et al., 2008) or an
advanced oxidation process, such as ozonation, Fentons reagent,
electrochemical oxidation, etc., (Adhoum and Monser, 2004), as
well as on various combinations of these processes (Khou et al.,
2006). It should be noted that the efciency of the process, the
complexity and the costs involved may vary signicantly. High
costs are often the main reason for not adopting these OMW
treatment methods.
The OMW is characterized by high concentrations of several
organic compounds, such as organic acids, sugars, tannins and
phenolic compounds. These latter make the OMW difcult to treat
and resist biodegradation (Turano et al., 2002) and therefore pre-
sent serious environmental problems (Salomone and Ioppolo,
2012). However, the table olive wastewaters (TOW) show high
concentrations of salt, acidic pH, a moderate to large chemical and
biological oxygen demands (COD and BOD) and signicant content
of phenolic compounds with lower organic load as compared to
OMW (Segovia-Bravo et al., 2007; Tuna and Akpiar-bayiziti, 2009).

0959-6526/$ e see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.08.016

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2. Material & methods

Nomenclature
2.1. Chemicals
OMW olive mill wastewater
TOW table olives wastewater The ethyl acetate, methanol, FolineCiocalteu reagent, sodium
VCF volume concentration factor bicarbonate and potassium dichromate were purchased from
COD chemical oxygen demand SigmaeAldrich Co. (Germany), and used in the extraction and
TPC total phenolic content colorimetric determination of the total phenolic content of olive
UF ultraltration processing wastewaters. Sulfuric acid, mercuric sulfate, the potas-
OD optical density sium biphthalate were procured from SigmaeAldrich Co., and used
TS total solids for the preparation of the COD reagents. Hydrochloric acid and
EC electrical conductivity sodium hydroxide were purchased from Rieden-deHan Co. (Ger-
many), and used for the adjustment of pH. All chemicals were of
Symbols analytical grade. Tyrosol was also purchased from SigmaeAldrich
T temperature ( C) Co. and was used as standard for the determination of total
C concentration of phenolic compounds (g TYE/L) phenolic content.
V volume (L)
RPP polyphenol rejection (%) 2.2. Wastewaters samples
Rcolor color rejection (%)
RCOD chemical oxygen demand rejection (%) OMW samples were obtained from semi-modern units which
J permeate ux (L/(m2 h) use a press-based oil extraction process and TOW samples were
collected from green table olive processing unit, located in region of
Subscripts Marrakech (Morocco) during the 2009/2010 season. The samples
f feed were freshly used for the physicochemical analysis and ultraltra-
o initial value tion experiments.
p permeate
r retentate 2.3. Ultraltration

A polyethersulfone membrane (MicrodynNadir, Germany) with

Both wastewaters exhibit relatively high organic load and
important concentrations of phenolic compounds. Efcient
sustainable treatments should guarantee not only a signicant
reduction of BOD and COD values, but also the possibility of
selectively recovering some valuable compounds. The high
concentrations of natural phenolic compounds which are known
as powerful natural antioxidants make these wastewaters a
potential and a cheap interesting natural source for these
bioactive substances. However, products intended for food and
drugs uses may require some specic standards concerning
composition, purity, quality and other properties. In this
scope, membrane processes can assure these requirements
since it produce a clean permeate and often do not need addi-
tion of toxic chemicals. Our previous works, reported applica-
tions of different membrane processing for the recovery of the
natural phenolics from these by-products (El-Abbassi et al.,
2009; 2011).
Ultraltration (UF) has been applied by many researchers to
treat different wastewaters such as Kraft black liquor
(Bhattacharjee et al., 2006), soy protein production industry
(Cassini et al., 2010) and alcohol fermentation industry (Kim et al.,
1997).
One common problem with membrane processing is the
membrane fouling that drastically reduces the ux, the efciency of
membrane separation and also changes its selectivity. In the case of
olive processing wastewaters, the high content of suspended
matters causes fouling and therefore reduces the membrane life.
Hence, a pretreatment step is necessary to decrease membrane
fouling and to increase the process efciency. Considering this fact,
physical pretreatment has been applied to reduce pollutant power
of OMW and TOW.
The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of feed pH on the
removal of color, phenolic compounds, total solids and chemical
oxygen demand. The effect of feed pH on permeate uxes was also
investigated.
a molecular weight cut-off of 50 kDa was used. UF experiments were
carried out at a room temperature (25  C  2  C) in a stirred UF cell
(AMICON 8200, Millipore USA) with a 200 mL volume. The effective
surface area of the membrane was 28.7 cm2. The transmembrane
pressure (3 bar) was monitored with pressurized nitrogen gas by
means of a pressure gauge. The feed volume was 100 mL and the cell
was stirred at 250 rpm using a magnetic stirrer. Permeate uxes
were determined continuously using a graduated cylinder con-
nected to the permeate outlet. Before and after each run, distilled
water was ltered to determine and compare the permeability of the
membrane. UF experiments were stopped when the volume con-
centration factor (VCF) reached a value equal to 2:
Vo
VCF (1)
Vr
where Vo and Vr stands for the initial feed volume and retentate
volume, respectively.
The effect of pH on the process performance was studied at
various pH values ranging from pH 2 to pH 12 obtained by the
addition of 2M NaOH solution or 2M HCl acid solution. Membranes
were washed after use and kept overnight in a solution of iso-
propanol/water (1:1 v/v) containing hypochlorite of sodium to
remove eventual coloration caused by the treated efuents.
2.4. Analytical procedures
2.4.1. Electrical conductivity and pH
Electrical conductivity (EC) and pH were determined by digital
calibrated pH and conductivity meters (MultiLab P5, WTW
Germany).
2.4.2. Total solids
Total solids (TS) were determined by weight difference before
and after drying the sample overnight at 105  C, until a constant
weight was obtained.

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2.4.3. Color compounds was fullled on base of their retention time in com-
The color was monitored by measuring the differences of parison with phenolic standards and from literature.
absorbance at 395 and 465 nm for OMW (Jaouani et al., 2006) and
at 440 and 700 nm for TOW (Bouaziz et al., 2008), after 100 times 3. Results and discussion
and 5 times dilution against distilled water for OMW and TOW,
respectively, to reach absorbance values between 0.2 and 1.5. The 3.1. Physicochemical characterization of samples
color was expressed as the average of absorbances measured at
each wave length. The removal of color was calculated using the The determinations carried out for OMW and TOW were sum-
following equation. marized in Table 1. As shown in the table, TOW is characterized by
! an acidic pH, high electrical conductivity, moderate COD (6.4 g of
ODp O2/L) and a phenolic content of about 4.8 g of TYE/L.
Rcolor 1  100 % (2)
ODf OMW is relatively dense, meanly acidic with a high organic load
that reaches values as high as 173 g/L COD, it contains large
where Rcolor is the decolorization rate, OD is the optical density and amounts of total solids reached up to about 160 g/L. Amongst other
the subscripts p and f stands for the permeate and the feed, organic constituents, OMW contain high concentrations of
respectively. phenolic compounds (8.8 g/L).

2.4.4. Chemical oxygen demand (COD)
COD was determined by the dichromate method as described by
LaPara et al. (2000). The appropriate amount of wastewater sam-
ples was diluted up to 100 times and introduced into lab-prepared
digestion solution containing potassium dichromate, sulfuric acid
and mercuric sulfate and the mixture was then incubated for
120 min at 150  C in a COD reactor (Model WTW CR3000, Ger-
many). COD concentration was measured colorimetrically at
600 nm using a MultiLab P5 (WTW, Germany). The standard so-
lutions of 1, 2, 3, 4 g of O2/L were prepared using the potassium
biphthalate. The process efciency in reducing COD was expressed
as follows:
!
CODp
RCOD 1  100 %
CODf
where RCOD is the COD removal and the subscripts p and f stands for
the permeate and the feed, respectively.
2.4.5. Total phenolic content
Total phenolic content (TPC) was determined colorimetrically by
the Folin-Ciocalteu reagent (Singleton et al., 1999), on the meth-
anolic extract after liquideliquid extraction by ethyl acetate and
was expressed as tyrosol equivalents (TYE) and the obtained values
were expressed as g of tyrosol equivalent per liter (g TYE/L) of
wastewaters. All analyses were made in triplicate. To evaluate the
membrane separation efciency for rejection of phenolic com-
pounds from the feed solution, the following equation was used:
! in Fig. 2. The dark color of OMW increases considerably at pH > 8
Cp
RPP 1-  100 %
Cf
where RPP is the removal efciency, Cp is the permeate concentra-
tion of the phenolic compounds and Cf is the concentration in the
feed.
3.2. HPLC analysis of OMW and TOW phenolic extracts
To determine and compare the phenolic proles of OMW and
TOW, an HPLC analysis was performed and the monocyclic phenolic
compounds of the efuents were identied (Fig. 1a, b and Table 2).
OMW and TOW showed different phenolic proles in terms of
concentration and composition since gallic and caffeic acids were
not detected in TOW (Fig. 1a, b and Table 2). Olive processing
wastewaters chemical composition and their phenolic content
depends on the cultivar, climate, soil nature, olives ripeness, oil
extraction process or table olive preparation process. The results
show that hydroxytyrosol is the most abundant phenolic com-
pound in olive processing wastewaters and represents about 70%
and 87% of the total phenolic concentration of OMW and TOW,
(3) respectively. Hydroxytyrosol has been an important focus of
research since its discovery (Ragazzi and Veronese, 1973).
Hydroxytyrosol-4-b-glucoside, hydroxytyrosol and caffeic acid are
hydrolysis products of verbascoside and the hydroxytyrosole
secoiridoid, and they show powerful antioxidant activities (Obied
et al., 2007). Hydroxytyrosol inhibits human LDL oxidation
(Visioli et al., 1995), inhibits platelet aggregation (Petroni et al.,
1995) and exhibits anti-inammatory (De la Puerta et al., 1999)
and anticancer properties (Owen et al., 2000). OMW and TOW are
certainly potential sources for the extraction and recovery of the
hydroxytyrosol.
3.3. Effect of pH on olive processing wastewaters color
The variations of OMW and TOW color against pH are depicted
(4) and reaches a value two times higher than the initial color (Fig. 2).
However, the increase in absorbance against pH was more impor-
tant in TOW. The color increases more than 6 times when
increasing the pH from 4 to 12. Tannins and anthocyanins, among
other natural pigments, are responsible of the OMW and TOW

2.4.6. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis of

Table 1
phenolic compounds
Main physicochemical characteristics of olive processing wastewaters.
The analysis was performed on a JASCO HPLC system, equipped
by a JASCO UV detector (UV-975) operating at 280 nm. The column Parameter Unit Average  SD

used to analyze polyphenols was a reversed phase Lichrosphere OMW TOW

C18 (4  250 mm i.d 5 mm), the column was washed with aceto- pH e 5.2  0.1 4  0.1
nitrile 100% before and after analysis. A mixture of acetonitrile/ Ash content g/L 45  3.5 e
water acidied with acetic acid was chosen as the optimal mobile Electrical conductivity mS/cm 43  2.4 84.2  0.3
phase. The ow rate was 0.8 mL/min and the injection volume was Chemical oxygen demand g O2/L 173  16 6.4  0.7
Total solids g/L 160  5.6 73.5  1.5
20 mL. The concentration of individual identied phenolic com- Total phenolic content g TYE/L 8.8  1.3 4.8  0.2
pounds was expressed as g TYE/L. The identication of phenolic

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1.4

1.2

Absorbance
0.8

0.6

0.4

OMW
0.2
TOW

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
pH
Fig. 2. Changes of color (absorbance) of olive processing wastewaters against the pH.
The arrows indicate the color at the initial pH.

Fig. 1. HPLC chromatograms of OMW(a) and TOW(b) phenolic extracts diluted 6 times:
1. gallic acid. 2. Hydroxytyrosol-4-b-glucoside. 3. Hydroxytyrosol. 4. Tyrosol. 5. Caffeic
acid. 6. Para-coumaric acid. Peaks 3, 4, 5 and 6 were identied by use of standards. The
remaining peaks were tentatively identied by comparison with literature data.
color. These pigments are pH sensitive and change colors with
changing acidity levels. At acidic pH the pigments display a red
coloration and at basic conditions the color becomes black-purple
and darker, especially in the case of OMW which was diluted 100
times to get measurable absorbances.
3.4. Ultraltration of OMW
3.4.1. Effect of pH on permeate uxes
It has been established in a previous study (Tlay and Funda,
2009) that pH has an important effect on the efciency of the ef-
uents treatment. To investigate the inuence of this parameter on
the permeate uxes and rejection of the pollutants in the olive
processing wastewaters; the feed pH was adjusted at different
values from 2 to 12.
The permeate uxes of OMW and TOW processing by UF against
feed pH are shown in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4, respectively. In the case of
OMW, pH 2 exhibits the highest permeate uxes. While, at higher
pH values, a signicant decrease in the initial permeate ux was
observed (Fig. 3). This nding can be attributes to the fatty acids
which are present in OMW among other organic compounds. Fatty
acids are weak acids and they dissolve at alkali solutions by equi-
librium reaction given in Eq. (5).
HA H2 O4H3 O A (5)
Increasing pH drives the equilibrium to the right side. In this
case, fatty acid molecules are converted into ions and their inter-
action with the membrane surface is increased so that the
permeate ux decreased drastically (Fig. 3).
It is observed that as pH increases to pH 12 from the initial pH
(5.2), the initial permeate ux decreases from 35 to 33 L/(m2 h) at
pH 6 then decreases considerably to reach 14,10 and 4.5 L/(m2 h) at
pH 8,10 and 12, respectively. When adjusting feed pH to pH 4 the
permeate ux was increased up to 44 L/(m2 h). However, at lower pH
(pH 2) the ux increases signicantly and reaches its highest value
(49 L/(m2 h)). However, in the case of TOW, the initial permeate
uxes show a different behavior against pH (Fig. 4). pH values of 6, 8,
10 show the highest uxes (55, 50.5 and 54 L/(m2 h)) which decrease
considerably against operating time to reach 20 L/(m2 h) for feed pH 6
and 8, and only 3 L/(m2 h) for feed pH 10.
As shown in Fig. 4, the permeate uxes through UF membrane
dropped rapidly for neutral and alkaline pH-values. Permeate ux
pH=2
60 pH=4
pH=5.2
pH=6
50 pH=8
Permeate flux (L/(m.h))

pH=10
pH=12
40
Table 2
The monocyclic phenolic compounds of olive processing wastewaters as identied
by HPLC.
30
Phenolic OMW TOW
compound
Concentration Share in Concentration Share in 20
g TYE/L TPC % g TYE/L TPC %

Gallic acid 0.778 10.8 e e

10
Hydroxytyrosol-4-b- 0.223 3.1 0.061 1.9
glucoside
Hydroxytyrosol 5.021 69.6 2.827 86.8 0
Tyrosol 0.332 4.6 0.231 7.1 0 4 8 12 16 20
Caffeic acid 0.123 1.7 e e
Para-coumaric 0.732 10.2 0.137 4.2 Time (min)
acid
Total 7.209 100.0 3.256 100 Fig. 3. Permeate ux of OMW processing by UF after adjustment of feed pH to different
pH-values.

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60 120
pH=2
pH=4
pH=6 100
50 pH=8

Decolorization (%)
Permeate flux (L/(m.h))

pH=10
pH=12 80
40
60

30
40
OMW
20 TOW
20

10 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
pH
0
0 4 8 12 16 20 Fig. 5. Decolorization of olive processing wastewaters by UF at different feed pH. Data
Time (min) are the average of the results of three experiments.

Fig. 4. Permeate ux of TOW processing by UF after adjustment of feed pH to different

pH-values.
Concerning the COD of OMW, the reduction decreases from 60%
to 5% when increasing feed pH value from 2 to 10, then increases to
decreases about 60% for pH-values of 6 and 8 and it exceed 90% for 12% when adjusting feed pH to 12 (Fig. 6a). At acidic conditions, the
pH 10 during the rst 20 min of operating time. reduction of OMW phenolic content is less than 15%. However, it
The quick decrease of permeate ux for TOW samples with reaches 30% at pH 12. The UF of TOW showed higher rejection of
alkaline pH can be due to the narrowing or clogging of membrane TPC (Fig. 6b). Phenolic compounds are weak acids and at feed pH
pores by some substances which could be precipitated at alkaline pH
such as proteins (Cheryan and Merin, 1980) and polyphenols
(Susanto et al., 2009) by forming a fouling cake-layer on the mem-
brane surface which affect considerably the permeate ux and 100
COD
consequently cause severe pore clogging. Furthermore, the fouling
(a) TS
phenomenon can be attributed also to the polarization concentration TPC
80
which can induce salt crystals formation on the membrane surface.
In the case of alkaline TOW pH-values, a precipitate was
Rejection (%)

formed which aggravated the membrane fouling phenomenon 60

and thereby decreasing the ux drastically especially in the case of
feed pH 10 (Fig. 4). The application of UF for the treatment of
40
TOW without pH adjustment seems to be more suitable, since at
this pH the permeate ux was more or less stable (Fig. 4). How-
ever, in the case of OMW, an adjustment to pH 2 increases the 20
permeate uxes but a subsequent adjustment of the efuent pH to
pH 6 is necessary to satisfy discharge standards. So, pH 4
seems to be the most convenient feed pH value for the UF of 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
OMW.
pH
3.5. Decolorization and detoxication of OMW by UF
100
COD
(b) TS
Dark color is an indicator of pollutant power. The olive pro-
TPC
cessing wastewaters treatment by UF allows the rejection of a 80
great part of the organic matter and pigments, which contribute to
Rejection (%)

the feed color (Fig. 5). For OMW, the decolorization is less feed-
pH-dependent compared to other parameters which vary 60
considerably related to the feed pH. The reduction of dark color is
in the range of 61e83%, it decreases with the increase of feed pH 40
value. However, for TOW, the decolorization is less than 64% for
pH values between 6 and 8, but reaches values in the range of 70e
91% at high acidic and alkaline conditions. The highest decolor- 20
ization values are obtained at feed pH-value 4 and pH-values of 4,
10, 12, for OMW and TOW, respectively (Fig. 5). The decolorization
0
of TOW is efcient at the initial feed pH (pH 4) and at highly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
alkaline pH. This sigmoidal behavior of the variation of decolor-
pH
ization values against feed pH in the case of TOW can be due to the
considerable changes of turbidity and granulometry occurring at Fig. 6. Rejection of chemical oxygen demand, total solids and total phenolic content by
different pH values. UF at different feed pH of (a) OMW and (b) TOW.

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6 A. El-Abbassi et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2013) 1e7
value higher than its pKa, they become deprotonated and interact
with the membrane surface. pKa refers to the negative logarithm of
Ka (which is the acid dissociation/ionization constant). The higher
the value of pKa the smaller the extent of dissociation. Subse-
quently, their retention is higher at pH values higher than 12.
Furthermore, the reduction of OMW total solids (TS) by UF is more
or less the same (27e37%) at wide range of pH, from pH 2 to
pH 10 (Fig. 6a), but it is less than 6% at pH 12. However, during
TOW processing by UF, the TS rejections were in the range of 5e8%
from pH 2 to pH 8, and below 4% at feed pH 10 and pH 12
(Fig. 6b).
Since rejection rates were acceptable at feed pH 4 (Fig. 6a and
b) and the permeate uxes were reasonable (Figs. 3 and 4), the
choice of operational conditions which gives maximum uxes for
UF plants seems reasonable. Almost all published works dealing
with olive processing wastewaters are focused on olive mill
wastewaters. Therefore, the available literature on the treatment of
table olive wastewaters by UF process is limited. The results of the
current study are compared with those obtained in previous
research for others but similar types of wastewaters. Removal ef-
ciencies in membrane processes depend on the wastewater
characteristics and membrane type. For instance, COD removal
efciencies were 80% for textile wastewaters (Schoeberl et al.,
2005) and 60% for pulp and paper industry wastewaters (Vieira
et al., 2001). These COD removal efciencies obtained in the pre-
sent study are lower than those obtained by aerobic (between 50
and 70%) and anaerobic digestion (between 81 and 94%) (Beltran
et al., 2008). An important removal of total phenolic compounds
around 97% is obtained in aerobic biodegradation, while it does not
exceed 40% for simple UF (Beltran et al., 2008). The UF of both TOW
and OMW shows decolorization rates almost similar to the rates
obtained by electrocoagulation of OMW (Adhoum and Monser,
2004). In a previous work (El-Abbassi et al., 2011), we were able
to reject up to 70% of OMW phenolic content and obtained a
decolorization in the range of 87e89% using Micellar-Enhanced
Ultraltration.
It is worth to notify that at acidic conditions (pH < 4), a
precipitation phenomenon occurs. At this pH range, some
charged molecules and proteins may be neutralized and occu-
late or precipitate under static conditions. This phenomenon may
increase the particle size of suspended solids, and consequently,
the rejection of organic matters which is found to be more
important at pH 2 compared to the other feed pH values. In fact,
the cost of use of more acid to achieve lower pH value (pH 2)
and the benet of use of less UF modules running with higher
permeate uxes must be taken into account when building the
UF plants.
4. Conclusion
The UF process can be applied efciently as a pretreatment for
the reduction of color, organic load and COD since it exhibits high
decolorization and detoxication rates. The phenolic compounds of
OMW were rejected up to 30% (OMW) and up to 40% (TOW) at feed
pH value of 12. The decolorization was as high as 83% (OMW) and
91% (TOW) at pH 4. However, the COD reduction was high and
reached 60% at pH 2 for OMW, and was low for TOW with a
rejection of 24% at pH 4. The UF at acidic pH can be useful to get
rid of a great part of unwanted organic matter and color, and
maintaining the maximum phenolic content of the pretreated ef-
uents. These results showed that UF, as a clean technology, could
be a simple solution for the pretreatment of OMW prior to the
recovery of phenolic compounds and the preparation of natural
antioxidants concentrate, suitable for pharmaceutical, cosmetic
and food applications. Furthermore, the OMW residual UF
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concentrate can be used as soil fertilizer directly or after co-
composting, since it exhibits high organic load. Therefore, a sus-
tainable and cleaner production of olive oil and table olives can be
achieved.
Acknowledgments
Authors acknowledge Prof. Jan Hoinkis from Karlsruhe Univer-
sity of Applied Sciences (Karlsruhe, Germany) for offering mem-
branes gratefully. As well, authors thank greatly Prof. Moha
Taourirte and Mr. Mounsef Neffa from the Faculty of Sciences and
Technologies e Gueliz (Marrakech, Morocco) for their collaboration
in regard of HPLC analysis.
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Please cite this article in press as: El-Abbassi, A., et al., Application of ultraltration for olive processing wastewaters treatment, Journal of
Cleaner Production (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.08.016